The Tribune - Spectrum



Sunday, February 13, 2000
Article

Memories of a brush with royalty
By Darshan Singh Maini

AS one brought up in a devout nationalist Sikh home during the British days, my liberal, patriotic impulses took a more ideological stringency when as a college student at Amritsar, and later at Lahore, I was drawn, like the youth of that moment, to radical thought, to engagement or commitment. This had set my political imagination into motion. My antipathies and allergies subsumed not only imperialist rulers and their doctrines, but also the whole brood of subservient Indian Maharajas and Nawabs who had, in reality, been reduced to playboys, quislings and stooges with rare exceptions.

No wonder, my views regarding monarchy and its mystique had already taken a definitive form around that time. And later when the princes and the princelings were eased out of their fiefdoms with generous purses and privileges, they became, increasingly, a species fit for the museums where they could, like paper-tigers, roar away to glory in their own conceit. In sum, the Indian dislodged prince became a stereotype inviting all manner of jokes and cracks.

  This little preamble to my first brush with an Indian Maharaja only serves to give a keen edge to my story of royal reminiscences. For when later as a University teacher at Patiala, I had some occasions to meet, or call on the late Maharaja Yadavindra Singh, my perceptions of the unseated royalty, though unchanged in principle, acquired a broader form. For even as I frowned upon all forms of elitism based on rank, wealth, power or heredity, I did recognise the concept of ‘‘the royal spirit’’.

Which in effect means, that the ‘‘royalty’’ I had in mind referred to such things as personal refinement, stance and style, and to the magnanimities of the heart; not to the palaces and crowns and states. Obviously, the metaphorical use of the expression was a question more of sociology and linguistics than of politics or power. However, this story concerns a person who was once a distinguished ruler, a respected political personage and who was later called upon do many a duty involving the future of the country, and died in harness as India’s ambassador.

The wonderful aspect of this transformation was the ease and the elegance that had marked the passage from the crown to cognition, or from power to perception. He, of course, continued to live in the new Moti Bagh palace with all its splendour-vast lush-green, manicured lawns, exotic gardens of cacti and orchids and flowering trees without, and some great paintings and works of art, libraries and scores of other objets d’art to catch the visiting and wondering eye within — he had soon enough learnt to cultivate an air of informality, charm and conviviality.

It’s not as if he did not keep his distance when warranted, but a certain generosity of thought and word now characterised his impressive, regel personality. Tall, handsome, well-groomed and well - heeled, not even a stranger could miss the mark of distinction. He exuded confidence, authoritativeness and dignity without any overt sign or signal.

It was all then, a matter of ambience, and it needed no insignias to establish itself. He had, above all, keen observant, roving eyes that often sparkled with understanding. The address and the signatures were evident.

And then my first call at the Moti Bagh palace in the summer of 1962 when I left the National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla, after a long teaching stint to take up professorship at the Punjabi University soon after. A letter from his cadet-son Amarinder Singh (who later gave up his Army Commission to embrace politics) to his mother, the erstwhile Maharani of Patiala, was my ‘‘ticket’’ to the royal house, so to speak. A woman of queenly beauty and charm, she received me with great courtesy.

Of the remaining meetings some survive in my memory: a sudden meeting with him at Ralph’s bungalow (nearly all youngmen related in any way to the palace, and quite a few gallants in Patiala even otherwise, loved to sport English- Christian names), and an evening of great merriment, drinks and patter; a visit to the Moti Bagh palace with my younger brother from Kuwait, keen to see the royal splendour, and the grace with which we were received in the garden where Yadavindra Singh was walking with long brisk strides. Well, such are the memories and such are our thoughts today.

One staying at the University campus got so late in driving towards our door, Yadavindra Singh felt compelled to leave. He had, as he told me, invited a couple of ministers to the palace for dinner. As we learnt later, the groom, Vikram Lal,(later, Chairman, Eicher Group of Industries) couldn’t find his Jaipuri turban, achkan and chooridars in his baggage, and had to cool his heels for a couple of hours before the truant van carrying their luggage finally arrived. Well such, are the memories, and such, such our thoughts today!

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